An important disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor and none of the below should be construed as financial advice. The below details tactics that have worked for me, but you should not expect to see similar success. Stock market investing is SUPER risky, only choose strategies that work for your personal goals and circumstances, and always seek advice from an accredited financial advisor.

Also, full disclosure: I am a proud affiliate, meaning if you click a link and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. My recommendations are based on deep experience with and knowledge of the products I mention and I recommend products only when they are genuinely helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions I may receive. Please don’t spend any money on products I recommend unless you genuinely believe they will help you achieve your goals.

For lucky article #100, I’m sharing my examples for success… and failure.

I’ve been on a journey to FIRE for some time, but it hasn’t always been rainbows and butterflies. No, I’ve made some pretty painful mistakes along the way.

From buying a car with an interest rate of 29.99% (yes, you read that right), to carrying a student loan balance of nearly $100K, I’ve made some pretty costly financial mistakes along my journey.

Just about the only major financial mistake I HAVEN’T made was carrying a credit card balance… And that was only because my dad taught me to avoid it at all costs. I taught myself the other stuff the hard way though.

In this article, I’m going to tell you about the lessons I’ve learned along my financial freedom journey. Use these examples for success (and failure) as a guide along your own journey. Even better if you can learn from my mistakes and avoid them entirely!

By the way, this article is part 1 of a 2-part series. You can find part 2 at the following link:

#101: 4 Surprising Things I Learned Along My FIRE Journey

6 Important Lessons I Learned Along My FIRE Journey

I’ve made my share of mistakes. Thankfully, I’m wiser for them, but I would rather have avoided them entirely…

Here’s to hoping you can learn from my failures!

Examples for Success (and avoiding failure): On the Basics

1. Learn Enough About Taxes, Interest, and Credit and You’re Off to a Good Start

As I entered adulthood, there were a lot of things that confused me, but few things confused me more than taxes, interest, and credit.

Sure, I understood that you had to pay taxes. I’d been paying sales taxes when I bought things at the store and I had my first exposure to income taxes after I got my first job at 16. Even then, I didn’t realize just how many things were taxed, or how impossible it was to avoid them.

While I would never suggest skirting taxes (the last thing you want is an IRS audit), it does pay to better understand them. You might be surprised at the many tax breaks that are available (especially if you start your own business). However, it’s hard to take advantage of tax breaks if you don’t understand them.

Interest was another thing that confused me. As a kid, I figured you just borrowed what you needed and paid it back, right? Come on, you probably thought that as a kid too. 

Interest and debt are ok when used cautiously and mindfully, but it does pay to avoid high-interest debt… I also highly encourage paying off debts early when and where possible. Your financial future will thank you for it later.

Perhaps the thing that confused me the most was credit and credit scores. I understood that you could get a loan, but I didn’t understand how your credit score made it possible (or not).

If you think credit cards are the work of the devil, you’re not alone, but you can use them to your advantage… more on that soon (you’ll need to keep reading on to learn what I mean).

Examples for Success (and avoiding failure): On Debt

2. How to Avoid Bad Loans

Fresh out of college, I was 22 and ready to begin my career. So what better way to begin a career than to buy a car that would help me get to the job of my dreams?

Before then, I’d borrowed my grandparents’ old Lincoln Town Car, and I was very ready for something else. Plus, I promised to return the car after I was done with college.

The trouble, however, was that I still didn’t have a stable job. I was looking for one, but getting a job without a reliable car would be hard.

Luckily for me (I thought), my boyfriend at the time had a job, but he had bad credit. Neither one of us could buy the car alone, but we could get it if we purchased it together. So we did.

We purchased a used 2007 Nissan Sentra for something shy of $10K… at an interest rate of 29.99%. Yep, you read that right, and no, it’s not a misspelling.

I knew going into the purchase that it wasn’t a good rate, but the car salesman convinced us it was the best he could do. After all, one of us didn’t have a job, and the other had bad credit. And we believed him.

In time, my boyfriend and I broke up and he bought me out of the car, eventually taking over the remaining car payments. He later refinanced it, thankfully ridding me of the awful car loan entirely.

I learned the hard way not to trust car salesmen. It’s probably for that very reason that I thoroughly despise car salesmen today. Lesson learned: don’t ever buy anything for an interest rate even close to that absurd figure.

3. Student Loans Suck (literally, they suck your wallet)

By the time I graduated with my MBA, I’d acquired a student debt balance of nearly $100K (excluding what my husband owed). While I knew I’d eventually have to pay it off, it took some time before I fully understood what it would cost me.

I took a short break between undergrad and grad school to begin my career, and even though I only had about a $35K student loan balance at that point, I struggled to find a job and pay my monthly balance. So I opted for a graduated repayment plan that started with a low payment and increased alongside my income.

In truth, I was pretty ashamed that I struggled so much to pay my monthly bill, but it was all I could afford at the time. 

It wasn’t until years later (after I finished my grad studies), that I consolidated my student loans and we paid off the remaining $85K student loan balance (including my husband’s) in just 18 months. This was after I discovered that my student loan interest ALONE was costing over $3.5K every year.

That was money that was poof, wasted. And it was enough to pay for a nice cruise vacation every year.

While I started paying off my student loans slowly, I found a way to quickly repay the last of my student debt. Given another opportunity, however, I would have tried to find better ways to finish my studies without acquiring large amounts of debt.

Examples for Success (and avoiding failure): On Investing and Wealth

4. Investing Isn’t Just for the Rich and Financially Savvy

I used to think you had to have a lot of money to invest, which isn’t the least bit true.

Sure, you’ll see larger returns when you put more money into investments, but you don’t need to be wealthy to invest your money. You just need to have enough left over at the end of the month.

It doesn’t need to be $100s or $1,000s of dollars either. It’s nice if you can get to that point, but even $50 here or there can make for a great start.

I wasn’t very confident about investing when I started, so I practiced with a stock market simulator and fake money that followed the market in real-time. It was exactly what I needed to gain the confidence that would help me succeed in my investing journey.

By the time I was ready to invest my own money, my husband and I had saved enough to invest $2,000. It was plenty for me to test out my newfound knowledge of investing.

My investments didn’t initially go very far, but as I gained knowledge and confidence, my investment dollars increased accordingly and I began to realize healthy gains.

5. Investing Can Be Easy

I used to think that investing was super complicated and full of confusing jargon. And while yes, there are complexities of investing that can make it difficult, it actually can be pretty easy.

For instance, you can invest pretty smart by simply putting your money into low-cost index funds.

While my investing game has gotten better over the years and today I invest outside of index funds, a vast majority of my investments are still (and will remain) in index funds.

Index funds are great because they are low cost and they can capture an entire index (such as the S&P 500). They have natural diversification, and therefore lower risk than individual company stocks, for instance.

6. Your House Can Be a Wealth Builder… If You’re Lucky

My husband and I bought our Oregon-based house in early 2016 – before our region had fully recovered from the Great Recession. We were one of the lucky ones.

Many of our friends weren’t so lucky. To this day, we know quite a few people who are still trying to buy their first house, and the market is incredibly tough.

Since we bought our house, its value has nearly doubled, and we bought at a time when interest rates were historically low. We have a lower mortgage payment than many of our friend’s rent payments.

While I’m incredibly grateful for our good fortune, my heart goes out to many of my friends who struggle to buy the house of their dreams. Between the sky-high prices and higher interest rates, a house has become unaffordable for many others in my generation.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve learned something of value to support your journey to financial freedom.

I’m grateful to support your success with each of these articles, but I’d especially like to honor this journey together as I celebrate the release of article #100.

Whether you’ve been here for a while, or you’re just joining the journey, I’m proud to support your wildest dreams to live life on your terms. 

So tell me in the comments below: Where is your journey taking you? What are you excited about? And what’s next for you?

Cheers to what’s next, whether you’re working toward something that’s big or small. In either case, I respect it’s right for you. Best of luck on your journey forward!

Now that you’ve learned these examples for success (and failure), you might be wondering how else you can FIRE Your Career. Check out the posts page for more ways you can FIRE Your Career and achieve financial freedom.

FIRE Your Career: Achieve Financial Freedom Through Your Career & Spend MORE Time Doing What You Love.

Resources I Frequently Recommend:

ClickUp (my recommended goal-tracking and project-management tool)

Strengths Finder (book to help you uncover your innate strengths, includes a free personality quiz)

The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing (a great intro to investing book)

Others: 16 Books I Recommend to FIRE Your Career